Long Way Home
by The Crownless Queen
Summary: Amelia Bones hasn't trusted in soulmates in years, not since she's joined the DMLE. But if anyone could change her mind, it'd be John.


_Word count:_ 3291

 **Long Way Home**

"Sorry I didn't wake you. You just looked so peaceful." The words barely registered in Amelia's mind at first as she blinked her eyes open sluggishly, feeling slightly more rested than she had been before. She hadn't meant to fall asleep on her desk – shouldn't have in fact, it was unprofessional – but this last week had been hectic.

Two Death Eaters on the loose, leaving bodies left and right, and no trails to follow. The Department was so very close to tilting into a full-blow panic that Amelia hadn't been home since this had started, and worse than that, the public was panicking, which meant that the Minister was panicking.

Not that the last one was that uncommon. How Fudge had ever become Minister, Amelia would never know, she thought uncharitably. The only thing he ever seemed to do was get in everyone else's way.

"It is fine," Amelia sighed, biting back on the reflex to yell at the man – one of the Aurors, must be new but no, the shadows in his eyes showed he had seen the horror of the field – for letting her sleep. She wasn't that much of a hypocrite, or at least she liked to think so. "I did need the rest. Did you have anything for me?"

It was only then, as she rose to rub the sleep away from her limbs, that she froze, the man's earlier words echoing in her mind.

Looking up and to her right, she saw that the man, who she had expected would start giving her his report, or whatever else he was here for, had frozen too.

He looked like he had been struck by lightning, eyes wide and disbelieving but also full of wonder, and if Amelia recognized the feeling so well, it was because it described perfectly what she herself was going through.

 _Well, drat_ , she thought as she shakily sat back down, gesturing at her visitor to do the same. _So much for a restful day at the office, uh?_

 **.x.**

The marks had, as far as anyone knew, appeared sometime around the twelfth century. It was, some said, the aftermath of a botched cursed cast by the Dark Lord of the time, a man whose name had been lost to History since.

He had meant to bind the wizarding race to himself, had wanted to make their power his own so that he could rule supreme forever. Instead, legend had it, something had failed in his spell, and instead of being bound to any single person, every magical being had found themselves bound to another. Some were bound in pairs, a few in triads – rare were bonds of more than three, though some had been recorded throughout History.

Others said it had been meant as a kindness, that a fairy queen had granted the wish of the lonely child who had saved her life, granting her the companionship she craved, and, because Fae magic was no ordinary magic, sharing that blessing with the entire world.

As a child, Amelia had been rather fond of the second explanation. As an adult, as a member of law enforcement, she thought the first one sounded far more likely, and ever since that realization she had been much more careful about meeting new people.

Truth was though, no one for sure where the words written on their wrists came from. All they knew was what they meant: when you met the person who spoke them, it would be your first meeting, and they would be your soulmate.

But even those two truths weren't as universal as the world would have you believe. Amelia had seen horrifying cases where a wizard or a witch had captured the one they thought _should be_ their other half and had forced their words into being rewritten, or overwritten. Cases where half a pair went mad and killed the other, only to kill themselves right after in a fit of grief.

Cases where someone faked a meeting, studying their target until they knew their words in advance, until they could engineer the perfect scenario. Those cases never ended well, not for anyone.

The worst cases always involved children. Children, whose parents grew so desperate they wrote words onto their child themselves, because everyone knew that if you had words you had magic, hoping that it would trigger something. It never did, of course, and sometimes the attempts grew too horrid to consider.

And all this made it very difficult for Amelia to consider soulmates, and the mark, as more than an inconvenience at best, and a threat at worst.

Her visitor – something Dewlish, no Dawlish maybe? Right, John Dawlish, that was it, she remembered now – spoke first. Amelia was reassured to see that he looked as unsure as she felt. Maybe, she thought, they could come to an understanding.

But instead of the dull conversation she had been expecting, Dawlish – should she call him John? it almost felt like she should – rubbed at his temples, and produced a thick file from somewhere in his robes.

His grey eyes looked sharp as steel, a change that was as sudden as it was welcome, and though Amelia could see remnants of the surprise they had shared, they were well hidden.

This man, she realized, was a professional.

"What do you have for me?" She repeated, graciously taking the out he had offered her. They would need to talk, eventually, Amelia wasn't as deluded as to think that they wouldn't, but it could wait. She was glad Dawlish seemed to think so too.

"We managed to track down a Potion dealer in Knockturn Alley who admitted to selling the Potions used on our third and four victims. It took some convincing, but eventually he, err, remembered who had bought them."

Suddenly wide awake and focused, Amelia leaned forward on her chair, grabbing a quill and some parchment to jot down anything she might need to do now.

"Did you get name?"

Dawlish winced. "Not exactly. This is where it gets complicated." He took a deep breath. "Apparently, the man our dealer claims bought the Potions had long blonde hair, and used a cane."

In her head, Amelia cursed, and from the looks of it, Dawlish was doing the same.

"Naturally, we sent that information over to the Investigation Department, and apparently Lord Malfoy was with the Minister when the Potions were bought, with dozens of witnesses to corroborate his alibi."

Amelia almost sighed in relief. Nearly everyone in their Department knew that Malfoy was guilty, of course – the Imperius defense was a great one, but when it came in concert with large donations to the Ministry's coffers, it didn't really work so well to convince anyone but the jury that you were innocent. Add to that a behavior that had remained more than a little shady since the Imperius had supposedly been lifted, and it was more than enough to actually convince most everyone of the opposite.

But knowing that someone was guilty wasn't the same as being able to prove it, and loath as she was to admit it, Malfoy was well protected. Going against him in a case this sensitive would have required rock solid proof they didn't have, and would have most likely only resulted in Malfoy walking free yet another time while the DMLE's reputation suffered a hit it couldn't afford to take.

She would have led the prosecution herself if it had been Malfoy though but she wouldn't have enjoyed it, not knowing that she would have lost. One day though, she would take genuine pleasure in bringing him down for his crimes.

"Polyjuice, then?"

"That, or a very good glamor spell, but we're thinking Polyjuice. The dealer provided us some names, both of his clients and of his competition, so we're running down those leads."

All of these were great news, though they didn't explain why Dawlish had been the one to bring them to her.

She remembered him better now though – they had never officially met, had never talked before this, though their paths had crossed a few time from afar. She had only ever heard praises for his skill as an Auror, and the reports signed in his elegant handwriting that sometimes passed her desk had always been on time, and well detailed.

"Is that all?" She asked, arching an eyebrow questioningly.

"Actually, no," Dawlish replied, looking distinctively ill at ease. "I was looking through the list of those Polyjuice buyers and I came across some irregularities."

Amelia felt her blood freeze in her veins, the tip of her quill pressing down on the parchment so strongly it almost snapped. "What kind of irregularities?"

"I believe some names were missing," Dawlish replied gravely.

He didn't need to say more. There were only two reasons why a name could be missing from an official statement: one, it had been removed for the mentioned person's own protection, or two, they had a traitor in their rank.

"You came to ask if I approved this, then."

Dawlish simply nodded. "Yes, though I can see now that you did not."

"Indeed," Amelia sighed, rubbing at her temples. Merlin, this was such a mess – this whole affair hadn't felt right from the start, not when all the investigation seemed to turn up were dead leads upon dead leads. A traitor amongst their rank would explain everything, loath as she was to admit it.

She raised her head, staring straight into Dawlish's eyes, pushing past the ire rising in her blood. "What were you thinking of doing?"

"I was there when we were originally given the names," he replied, his voice sure and steady. "I wasn't the only one, and the list was accessible to most anyone in the Department, so there is no way to know who altered it. However, I believe it to be possible to reconstruct the original list, but I would need your permission to use the Department's Pensieve."

Amelia nodded. It made sense. The DMLE owned a Pensieve precisely for this kind of situation after all, though its use was highly restricted. It was kept in a safe in the Head of the DMLE's office, where it could only be accessed by them. Sensitive memories were stored beside it, and before that law had been passed, too many successful attempts to temper or vanish those memories had been made.

"Of course. I will have to accompany you, of course."

Dawlish nodded, signaling that he understood, and Amelia stood up. With a wave of her wand, she raised a privacy ward, and with another she made sure he couldn't see what she was doing. Once that was done, she pushed her chair and desk away, revealing the faint outline of the hidden compartment they concealed.

The location of that compartment was hidden under a Fidelius, and Amelia was its Secret Keeper. There were, of course, safeguards in case she died without having revealed the Secret to anyone, but that system had worked for decades now, and Amelia honestly saw no reason to change it.

The safe required a drop of her blood to open and so Amelia reluctantly conjured a needle and used it to pierce the skin of her thumb, rubbing the blood on the wooden panel before stepping back and healing the small wound.

The panel shivered for an instant before vanishing, and the Pensieve rose from the depth it concealed, a small metal box Amelia knew from experience contained rows upon rows of memories rising with it.

She set the Pensieve on her desk, putting the box of memories in one of her drawers, before returning her office to its original state with a few quick waves of her wand and dismissing the privacy ward.

"I trust that you know the procedure?" Amelia asked.

"Yes," Dawlish answered, already resting the tip of his wand against his right temple. His forehead creased in concentration, but within a few seconds he pulled away a thin strand of silver that he deposited in the stone bassinet. It swirled around a little, catching the light in mesmerizing ways.

Dawlish touched the liquid first, and Amelia followed quickly after.

The street they found themselves in was dimly lit, but still Amelia recognized it instantly as one of the more infamous parts of Knockturn Alley. Dawlish was already moving away from her, his steps brisk as he followed his memory-self further down the darkness, and so Amelia hurried after him.

She didn't recognize the man memory-Dawlish and his partner were interviewing, though his demeanor identified him as a dealer of illegal goods almost immediately. He had that squirrelly look on his face Amelia knew from experience all petty crooks wore, and his nails were stained blacks in the ways Potion Masters' who had no access to the proper amenities were.

It took the man a good ten minutes to agree to give up his names, and almost half as long for him to list said names. Amelia made the effort to memorize as many as she could, Dawlish doing the same by her side.

"Did you get all of them?" She asked once the man's speaking dissolved into pleas for leniency.

Dawlish looked different from the back, she couldn't help but notice as her eyes wandered over his memory-self. His shoulders were drawn in tight, and even though the alley was nearly dark, his brown hair seemed to possess a shine to them that drew her eye to it.

Beside her, Dawlish looked deep in thoughts for a few moment, before he nodded. "I believe so, yes."

They left the memory immediately after that.

Amelia blinked her eyes open back in her office, struggling for a handful of seconds while reality reasserted itself. It always felt a little unnatural to come out of a Pensieve, and she really hoped she wouldn't have to go through this again anytime soon.

It didn't take them long to write down the names after that, and comparing their new list to the official one took an even shorter time.

Two names emerged: Aleksander Smythe and Jeremiah Stone, two foreign Aurors recently transferred from Germany, graduates from Durmstrang. there had never been any report of them supporting You-Know-Who's ideology, but they had transferred to the Auror Department right around the time the attacks had started.

For Amelia, that was more than enough to warrant a visit.

Having an actual end for this nightmare of a case in sight helped her push the fatigue away, and one Pepper-Up Potion later, she was gesturing at Dawlish to follow her, Smythe and Stone's address fresh in her mind.

They even lived together, how convenient.

"Madam Bones, are you sure we should go now?"

Shooting him her best authoritative look, Amelia shot down his concern. "We're only checking them out. I have the rest of the Department ready to find me at a moment's notice-" that safety measure was a leftover from the war, one that probably wouldn't ever be removed, "-and you're coming with me. We'll be fine."

"As you wish, Madam," he replied, though Amelia could see in the set of his jaw that he wasn't happy about it.

 **.x.**

The first words out of Amelia's mouth once they found some cover between a bush and the outer wall of a brick house were of surprise, though they came mostly out of shock. "You're bleeding!".

Her next ones, because she still couldn't quite believe what had just happened, were of reproach, and angry. "You took a spell for me, Dawlish, what in Merlin's name came over you?!"

They had gotten to Smythe and Stone's place without a hitch, but spells had started flying the moment they had been spotted.

Amelia, while she was no slouch with a wand, had still been vastly outclassed by their two suspects' teamwork. Dawlish, however, had been holding his own until a sickly orange spell had burrowed its way right past Amelia's shield spell, shattering it instantly in shards of silver that had dissolved in the air like mist.

Amelia hadn't even had time to react before Dawlish had pushed her outside of the spell's path, taking the hit for her. It sliced a deep gouge in his dominant arm, rendering him pretty much useless in the fight even though it thankfully seemed to have missed the artery.

She had managed to apparate them about fifty feet away before slamming into anti-apparition wards, and they had been hiding ever since, waiting for the Aurors Amelia had called to arrive.

Smythe and John were probably long gone by now, and in the meantime Amelia and Dawlish were stuck there. Dawlish was really in no condition to apparate outside of life or death situation, which Amelia believed this no longer was, and the last time he had tried to stand he had collapsed after half a step.

With this being a Muggle neighborhood, there really was no better way than to wait for the reinforcement that should arrive in the next few minutes anyway.

"With how much of my blood is currently on your hands, I do believe you should call me John," he hissed as she tried to spell his wound shut. So far Amelia had managed to slow down to bleeding, but from the way the wound seemed to resist to all of her attempts to close it, it was probably cursed and thus far beyond her ability to heal.

Amelia rolled her eyes even as she used a quick cleaning spell to take care of the blood that remained on hands, making her grip on her wand slippery. "Fine. Then what were you thinking, _John_?"

"That I couldn't let you die."

He spoke without fear or hesitation, his grey eyes dark with pain. With his arm uncovered as she tried to heal it, Amelia could see her words there, even through the blood that was still trickling softly down his skin, the cursive black and loopy.

Almost against her will, she found herself tracing down the letters, ignoring the goosebumps that rose of John's skin as she did so, the fire in her gut banked not by his words, but by the so very honest tone he had adopted.

"I don't really trust soulmates," Amelia admitted, looking John straight in the eyes, her wand halting in its healing attempts. Her other hand, though, stayed on his wrist. She could feel his pulse, and the radiant heat of his skin.

John laughed softly. "I don't really trust them either," he answered. "I don't believe many in our Department do."

Amelia shook her head ruefully. That was certainly true, yes. But John had taken a spell for her. He could have died, and as his boss she would definitely have to do something about that – the risk had been stupid: John was the better fighter, handicapping himself so could have cost them both their lives – but at the woman who bored his mark, she couldn't help but feel a little charmed.

"Maybe," she started, licking her lips with apprehension she hadn't felt in years, "maybe we could learn together."

Her heart beat so fast in her chest that she felt like a teenager again, back in Hogwarts as she tried to ask a boy out to Hogsmeade for Valentine's Day.

"I think I might like that," John replied, smiling.

His lips didn't really taste any different than any other lips she had kissed. There was no eruption of fire in her veins, no rush of heat on her skin, no electricity. There was a hint of copper though, lingering on her tongue, and the quiet feeling of two pieces finally fitting together, home at last.

It wasn't everything, but it was enough.

It was a start.


End file.
